I started by acknowledging that the defense has been much better this year, just unfortunately at the expense of the offense. Now he looks like a legitimate NHL player, last year he looked every bit like the sheltered rookie without accountability that he was so it's a great improvement overall. The question is merely whether he's now better than everyone else. Power meanwhile gets treated almost like a veteran already, his third year playing in a big role with someone barely older (and defensively less responsible) than himself, never really got sheltered at all.
"at the expense of offense"
Here is a complete list of dmen with a better on ice expected goals for than luke hughes this year:
Marcus Pettersson
John Carlson
Erik Karlsson
Martin Fehervary
Mattias Ekholm
Sean Walker.
That is the entire list.
Over his last 16 games that list becomes:
NOBODY.
In fact, nobody is even close.
He is first at 3.85
His partner is 2nd at 3.57
3rd place is 3.33.
Dropping down way down the list we find Simon Edvinsson at 2.08. Heck he's barely even above HALF of luke
Do you know what the word "sheltered" means. Luke was at no point sheltered, outside of MAYBE a brief period where I would describe him as more "saddled" with brendan smith than anything.
Power is nearly a full a year older than Luke and significantly worse.
